Month: October 2017

One of the best things about being a HIMSS Social Media Ambassador (four years in a row!) is being asked to write about anything that has anything to do with healthcare workflow. It is both flattering and satisfying. So, when I was had an opportunity to write about the upcoming Big Data & Healthcare Analytics Forum (Boston, 10/23-24) I jumped at the chance! Also, please join the #PutData2Work Twitter Chat (today, 1PM EST, immediately after #KareoChat).

The relationship between data and workflow in healthcare is an interesting one. The Forum illustrates this. It emphasizes “action” based on data: “actionable information,” “actionable strategy,” and “actionable insights.” Action is part of the definition of workflow, since workflow is a series of actions, consuming resources, achieving goals. In fact, big data, data science, machine learning, and business intelligence platforms are helping to bring sophisticated process automation tools to healthcare.

In my three-series just before the HIMSS17 conference, I describe how workflow technology makes modern machine learning and data science initiatives possible. It is simply no longer practical, to manually download, transform, then put into a format causing useful action at the point of care. Data sets so large they cannot fit on puny desktop drives, and then so slow to upload and download and upload again, force us to, essentially, model data workflows and then execute these models, in the cloud, without continuous, direct, manual, human intervention. I discussed this at length in A guide to AI, machine learning and new workflow technologies at HIMSS17 Part 1: Machine learning and workflow.

In particular, I hope you’ll pay attention to the following three presentations at the Big Data & Healthcare Analytics Forum…

How does workflow and process automation help make machine learning and smart systems practical?

How does workflow and process automation make generated insights “actionable”?

I’ll close with a quote from Hal Wolf, President And Chief Executive Officer, HIMSS:

“We want to maximize the patient experience at each clinic, and thus it’s important that we not be too rigid about workflows and systems. The clinics have room for flexibility and innovation.”

Most folks think of workflows in terms of day-to-day tasks of clinicians and staff. Obviously these “flows” influence patient experience. However, data-flow is also a kind of workflow. These workflows exist as both models of data flow, and executions of these models by various kinds of engines (workflow, process, orchestration, and data pipeline engines). Big data, business intelligence, and machine learning platforms have, at their core, sophisticated models and engines necessary to strike the right balance, between efficiency through best practice standards, and flexibility for healthcare organizations to innovate.

10:00AM EST on Tuesday, Oct. 3rd, during National Health IT Week (http://www.healthitweek.org) I’m excited to speak with Lars Brouwers, MD, MS (almost PhD!) about 3D-printing in healthcare. I hope you’ll join our Firetalk, make comments, ask questions, and even take a video seat! (I’ll publish your best segments as mini Youtube videos, and tweet them out during the rest of National Health IT Week!)

Here are couple quotes from Lars:

“3D-printing is the most important invention after internet. I use it on daily basis”

“Our goal is to investigate the added value of 3D-printing, and implement a low-cost workflow for many hospitals worldwide”

(Workflow!)

Later in the week Lars is speaking about his 3D-printing in surgery research in Vancouver, Canada, at the Orthopaedic Trauma Association’s 33rd Annual Meeting. So we are lucky to have this opportunity. Check out a recent article in Physician’s Weekly, “Implementing In-Hospital 3D Printing”, to learn more about Lars’ exciting use of 3D-printing to improve surgical outcomes.

If you are a patient, or a health IT professional, who’d like to learn more about 3D-printing and how it will affect your life or profession, this is a great opportunity to peek into your near future. Please join us, first watch and listen, and then to take a video seat and probe further and express your opinion.

By the way, this is the third time I’ve hosted a Firetalk group social video during National Health IT Week. It’s always fun, and it will be even more fun this year, during this years 2017 National Health IT Week!